When will FC Barcelona move back into the Camp Nou? How are construction works going?

FC Barcelona haven’t played in the Camp Nou since May 2023, with the iconic stadium turned into a construction site ever since as the club renovate their home. 

The Catalan giants planned to move back into the Camp Nou during the 2024/25 season, but the works have been marred by setbacks and delays.

Reports from March 2025 said the club won't return to their historic stadium until November 2025 at the earliest.

However, after their last home game of the 2024/25 season, in which they lost 2-3 to Villarreal while the La Liga title was already wrapped up, club president Joan Laporta said Barça had already played their last game with the Olympic Stadium in Montjuïc acting as their home stadium. 

Laporta said in an interview on Catalan television station TV3 that Barça will host their annual summer Gamper game in the new Spotify Camp Nou on August 8 or 9, a day which will serve as a pilot test before official competitive games can be played there. 

However, Barça are also planning to play their first games of next season away from home, with the Camp Nou unlikely to be ready to host competitive matches until September or October 2025.  

Reduced capacity

Whenever Barça move back to their historic home, it will only be at roughly 60% capacity for some months or even over a year, as construction continues on the third ring of stands. 

But how are works going on the Camp Nou stadium and what will it look like once it’s ready? 

In March 2025, the club announced the extension of the lease of the Olympic Stadium in Montjuïc even further, to May 20, covering all their home games for the 2024/25 season. 

In October 2024, FC Barcelona gave a press conference announcing their intentions to return before the end of the calendar year. However, nothing was confirmed that day, and indeed the club left the door open to the possibility of the return being pushed back after the new year. 

 

Half-built stadium in summer 2024

Ahead of the season kickoff, the stadium still looked only half built, with lots of frameworks and initial structures visible from the surrounding streets. 

The third tier of the stands had to be fully demolished and will be constructed again during 2025, to be fully ready by 2026. 

The club say that work is progressing “at a good pace,” but delays in a project of such a grand scale as this are common.

An area of 73,500m3 was demolished in the first year of works, with 425,000m3 excavated and 7,850,000kgs of steel put in place, as well as 54,900m3 of concrete. 

More than 1,200 workers are helping build the new Camp Nou, and they are currently focusing their work on the upper tier's metal structure, the partitions inside the stadium, and first and second tier seating placements. 

The works can be watched live as a nearby resident is live streaming the stadium from his apartment.

A total of €1.5 billion will be invested in the renovation works.

All in all, the Camp Nou stadium won't be ready until the 2025/26 season.

The club expects to finish the stadium works completely by August 2026, when it will have a capacity of 105,000 and an underground parking lot with up to 4,000 parking spaces. However, this termination date was given when the club expected to return to a reduced capacity Camp Nou before the end of 2024. 

Officials from the club have yet to give a revised date on when the full capacity new Camp Nou will be open.